Todistusaineisto sisältää valokuvan.

The body of evidence contains a photograph.

Breakdown of Todistusaineisto sisältää valokuvan.

• valokuva: the photo
• sisältää: to include
• todistusaineisto: the body of evidence

Questions & Answers about Todistusaineisto sisältää valokuvan.

Is todistusaineisto really one word? What is it made of?

Yes. Finnish very often forms nouns as compounds, written as one word.

todistusaineisto = todistus + aineisto

• todistus relates to proving, evidence, testimony, proof
• aineisto means material, data, collected material

So todistusaineisto is literally something like evidence material or evidentiary material. In Finnish, the last part of the compound is the main noun, so this is a kind of aineisto.

What case is todistusaineisto, and why doesn’t it have a special ending?

Here todistusaineisto is the subject of the sentence, so it is in the nominative singular, which is the basic dictionary form.

That is why you see:

• todistusaineisto sisältää ...
• not todistusaineiston sisältää ...

In a basic statement, the subject is normally nominative, and the verb agrees with it.

Why is the verb sisältää in this form?